Rethinking Colour to match technology and design

Vienna Textile Lab is a start-up founded by Dr. Karin Fleck developing organic colours made by naturally occurring bacteria in order to provide the most sustainable, wholesome and environmentally friendly alternative to conventional synthetic colours.

How does it work? Bacteria occur in various places around you in nature, for example, they can be found in the air, soil or in water. Vienna Textile Lab has been intrigued by the idea of using bacteria as a colourant for textiles and made it to their mission to dye fabrics and other materials with the help of bacteria. Colour derived from bacteria is a 100% natural biological product. During production, no valuable raw materials, for example, crude oil is needed, as it is usual in the production of synthetic colours. No farmland or greenhouses are required to grow the colour suppliers, the occurrence of bacteria is independent of the seasons and weather conditions or geographical location. No fertilizers are needed. This represents a clear advantage over the production of other vegetable and plant dyes. Suitable bacterial strains are stored in laboratories and can be reproduced and multiplied as required to obtain different hues. Specific sets of hues can be produced which can later be mixed to get a wide variety of color shades. The company is currently developing partnerships with textile finishing factories in order to implement a fully sustainable dyeing process that includes also fixing the colour on the desired substrate.